‘I had to become security’ – Ryanair passenger forced to intervene after in-flight abuse from drunken man

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

A passenger on a nightmare Ryanair flight has described how he felt forced to act as a security guard after an intoxicated man “went bananas” while the plane was mid-air.

Stuart Wilson, 52, claimed that a drunk man over six feet tall woke up and caused carnage on the journey from Manchester to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, one hour into the four-hour flight in July.

“This guy was roaring, calling his girlfriend a sl**, a sl*****, a wh***. He kept calling her a wh***. Everyone was trying to get him to stop. There were kids on the plane and an older person. People were crying, they were so upset,” he told the Irish Independent.

Mr Wilson claimed the young man knocked his girlfriend’s glasses off her head and repeatedly punched parts of the plane, including armrests, the seat in front of him and the overhead baggage compartments.

Staff managed to move the man to the back of the aircraft, but he came back, with Mr Wilson standing in his way, reportedly telling the aggravated flier: “No one is getting touched on this plane.”

“I’m not security, I was a passenger on a flight,” said Mr Wilson, adding that he had to become “air security” to “try to control the situation”.

“You could tell he’d been drinking a lot. I don’t know if drugs were used, but this was outrageous behaviour,” he added – expressing surprise that the man wasn’t arrested when the plane landed on the Spanish island.

A spokesperson for the low-cost airline confirmed to The Independent that a pair of passengers on this “became disruptive” on this flight.

“Crew defused the situation and moved one of the disruptive passengers to the other end of the aircraft for the remainder of the flight, which landed in Lanzarote as scheduled without any further disruption,” they added.

“We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of these passengers’ unruly behaviour.”